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A comment on Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice. Parent comment

Re:Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by philwelch on Tuesday July 07, 2009 @11:29PM (#693173)
The problem is, the statistics are very interesting just because we do live in a non-colorblind world. We're never going to live in any kind of idealized fantasy world where race and sex are irrelevant, so pretending that they are is ignorant of reality.
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Re:Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by makecheck on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @12:08AM (#693227)
If there's a flaw in democracy, it's that people can use any criteria they want to vote. :) If people ignore all logic and vote entirely based on a candidate's name or color, there's really nothing stopping them.

But what would discourage such shallow thinking, is a media that sets a good example. If newscasters' generalizations are closer to the best interests of voters (e.g. "popularity among people in <profession>"), it may have a positive effect on attitudes in society.

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Re:Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by philwelch on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @12:16AM (#693236)
The media's job isn't to "set an example", it's to report things as they are. As things are, people vote differently based upon sex and race, because they have different experiences and viewpoints and stations in life due to sex and race.

Even when all the candidates are white males, black people tend to vote for the white male that supports affirmative action and civil rights over the white male who does not.

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Re:Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by didip on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @01:16AM (#693327)
Since most media companies is run as for-profit, I would say that selling stories that sells is in their best interest as opposed to reporting things as they are.

Telling stories about black vs white candidates/voters are too profitable to passed up.

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Re:Interracial Roommates Can Reduce Prejudice by philwelch on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @12:57PM (#694205)
Be that as it may, the objective thing to do is still to report differences between voting populations based upon race and sex, because those differences do actually exist.
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